Through a wealth of printed and onscreen presentations, Jamie Hewlett, cult comic artist and co-creator of Gorillaz, produced a fiction-as-fact illusion of the band. His detailed storyboards and character profiles have brought to near-life the group’s four members – Murdoc, 2D, Russel and Noodle – and made the virtual group Gorillaz a real entity in the international music industry.
On leaving Northbrook College, West Sussex in the late 1980s, Hewlett developed the anti-heroine comic character Tankgirl for the music and culture magazine Deadline. The popular strip quickly became the focal point of the magazine introducing Hewlett to other creative projects, including more mainstream comics, advertising campaigns and record sleeve design. The extraordinary Gorillaz project grew out of a shared interest – and apartment – with Blur’s lead singer Damon Albarn. The debut self-titled album sold an impressive six million copies worldwide, making Gorillaz the most successful album ever by a virtual group.
For the 2005 launch of the second studio album, Demon Days, Hewlett took the visualisation and personification of the band to a new level. Working with long-time collaborators Passion Pictures, the group’s ‘live’ performances were upgraded from 2D projections to complex quasi-holographic performances in which the band were fully rendered onstage in 3D for the Mtv European Music Awards and the Recording Academy’s Grammy Awards. Jamie Hewlett works from his design company Zombie Flesh Eaters, based in West London.
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